The Crush Hypothesis
by notjaneausten
Summary: What if it were Sheldon that was experiencing the strange feelings that Amy went through in 'The Alien Parasite? A role reversal type story where Sheldon is convinced that he is suffering from an incurable disease... Disclaimer: All characters remain the property of Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady.
1. Chapter 1

Doctor Leonard Hofstadter was woken very early on a Sunday morning to the sound of his roommate and altogether pain in the butt, scraping furniture across the floor in the living room. He grabbed his glasses from the bedside cabinet and peered blearily at the illuminate numbers on his Star Wars alarm clock, before falling back to the pillows and groaning.

"Sheldon! It's five am on a Sunday morning! For the love of God, what are you doing out there?" He yelled out through the thin walls of the apartment and the scraping noises stopped only to be followed by a very familiar rapping on his bedroom door.

"Leonard. Leonard. Leonard."

"What, Sheldon?" Leonard replied irritably, shifting in the bed and plumping up his pillows.

"I can't sleep."

"You don't say…" Leonard muttered, throwing back his duvet and pulling on his robe. He opened the door and leant against the frame with his arms folded across his chest.

"Sarcasm?" Sheldon queried from the hallway and Leonard nodded. "Oh good, I think I'm getting better at detecting it these days." Leonard sighed and then looked over at his roommate, Sheldon's pyjamas were wrinkled and his undershirt was untucked from the waistband; his usually neatly combed hair was standing up on end as if he had spent hours running his fingers through it. There were dark shadows under Sheldon's eyes, which only made the natural paleness of his skin tone even more apparent.

"You okay, buddy?"

"Sarcasm again, Leonard?"

"Not this time, you look terrible Sheldon; what's on your mind?" Leonard was genuinely concerned about his friend and stepped out of his room to lead Sheldon into the living room. He paused on the landing and looked over to where Sheldon had put up two large whiteboards one headed 'symptoms' and the other 'possible cause'.

"Oh…I think I'm sick, Leonard." Sheldon slumped into his seat on the couch and sighed heavily.

"Oh, boy…is this a milky green situation?" Leonard started to back away slowly, the last time Sheldon was sick things turned ugly very quickly. Leonard, Raj and Howard had tried hiding out in the local movie house for a Planet of the Apes marathon but an unfortunate accident involving Howard's foot on Leonard's glasses had meant they had to cut their plans short in order to try and sneak back into the apartment to retrieve his spare pair. Penny had unluckily been picked by Sheldon to be his care giver and she was not amused to find out that the rest of the guys had been lying about being called into work on short notice.

"I don't have a fever and I don't feel congested at all, so I don't think this qualifies as 'milky green'." Sheldon stated slowly and Leonard relaxed a little, walking over to the kitchen to pop the kettle on.

"Okay, we're going to have a nice cup of tea and then we can talk about what you might be feeling and come up with a plan."

"Mmm, although offering me a soothing beverage isn't going to solve why I haven't slept in nearly three days, Leonard."

"Three days? Sheldon, why didn't you say something sooner?" Leonard whirled around to face his friend, astonished at the fact that Sheldon had obviously been suffering for all of that time and kept quiet about it. Sheldon was not normally one to suffer in silence, he was a bit of a drama queen when it came to any disruption of his normal routine and Leonard was amazed that it had slipped him by. "Is that why you insisted on finishing Season Four of Next Generation last night, even though it was way past your bedtime?"

"Yes, I've been attempting to stay up a little later each night thinking that it would make me fall asleep; but to no avail. Leonard, I always go to bed a precisely ten-fifteen, it takes me approximately fifteen minutes to fall asleep and then I wake up at oh-six-hundred hours every day; it's been the same routine every day for the last twenty years…I have never not been able to sleep before!"

"Never?"

"Never." Sheldon confirmed with a nod, reaching over to accept the warm cup of chamomile tea offered by Leonard. "My routine hasn't changed since I entered college, my body needs eight and a half hours in order to function correctly; without it I'm just a quivering wreck." Leonard took a sip of his own tea and then set the mug down on the coffee table. He walked over to the first of the whiteboards and picked up a marker.

"Okay, what are your symptoms?"

"Umm…" Sheldon thought about it for a second. "Inability to achieve REM sleep, obviously."

"Okay," Leonard noted that on the board and rolled his hand in a continuing motion. "Go on, what else?"

"Elevated heart rate…my resting heart rate is usually a steady 45 beats per minute and I've noticed that it's now in the low sixties."

"Mmm…and?"

"Sweaty palms." Sheldon offered up with a slight grimace, wiping said hands with a cleansing wipe and disposing it in the waste bin. Leonard raised his eyebrows at the sight of the heaping mound of wipes already in the bin. "Urgh…dry mouth." Sheldon continued, taking another sip of his tea. Leonard noted all of Sheldon's symptoms on the board and stood back to look at the list, tapping the marker against his lips.

"What do you think? It's something bad isn't it?" Sheldon tapped his lean fingers nervously on his knee and looked at Leonard for help.

"I don't know, are you in any pain at all? Headaches, nausea?"

"A little headachy from where I haven't slept…oh, there was a little nausea the other day, like my tummy had flipped over but I wasn't sick at all." Sheldon thought about what he had been doing at the time and his tummy flipped again. "Oh, dear there it is again." He pressed a hand over his abdomen and rubbed in circles.

"Okay, that's good. We need to list all of the times that you first noticed your symptoms and then we can start narrowing down the possible causes." Leonard dragged a third whiteboard over and headed that one 'timeline'. Pen poised in mid-air, he waited for Sheldon to start.

"I don't really know, Leonard; it's hard to pinpoint when I first noticed it. The tummy flip thing has been happening for a while now…usually when I'm at The Cheesecake Factory with Amy…I put it down to the excitement over my burger; but what if it means that I am suddenly becoming allergic to the barbeque sauce? Oh, Leonard this is terrible!" Sheldon rose from the couch and started pacing around the living room. "There's nothing else even remotely palatable on the menu, I need to change my whole Tuesday routine…I'll need to go online and read the ratings for a suitable replacement…that will take time and in a few days it will be Tuesday again!" Sheldon's tummy flipped again, and he felt his pulse quicken making him feel a little light headed. He sat down quickly in the armchair and Leonard patted his shoulder.

"There, there, buddy. I'm sure you can't suddenly become allergic to barbeque sauce; it's probably something else entirely. Did your tummy flip again? Heart rate quicken up? Okay, so we'll look at the variables and put them up on the board for reference." Leonard scribbled 'Tuesday', 'date', 'Amy' and 'Cheesecake Factory' on the board and Sheldon clicked his tongue.

"It was not a 'date', Leonard. It was just two friends sharing a table…I think I've lost count the number of times that I have stated that Amy is merely a friend who is a girl and most definitely is not my girlfriend!"

"Okay, I'll scrub that out." Leonard changed the word 'date' to read simply 'meal' and Sheldon nodded in satisfaction. His heart threatened to pound through his chest as he re-read the words on the board and he groaned a little.

"This is truly a nightmare, Leonard. I'm starting to perspire now and I think I'm developing a fever."

"Let's take your temperature and check." Leonard ran down the hallway and came back with Sheldon's ear thermometer. He stuck it in Sheldon's ear and when it beeped, pulled it out to get the reading. "Nope, completely normal. You don't have a fever, Sheldon." Leonard wrote the temperature on the white board and underlined 'no obvious fever'.

"Impossible, I'm positively drenched here!" Sheldon grabbed a tissue and dabbed at the tiny beads of sweat forming on his forehead. They both looked over at a knock on the apartment door and it opened to reveal Raj and Howard, kitted out in their paintball gear. Both men frowned at the sight of Sheldon and Leonard in their pyjamas.

"You do know that it's gone eight and we have a game at nine?" Howard strolled into the living room and sat down on the couch, glancing over at the whiteboard.

"I can't go paintballing, Leonard! I can't even focus on determining what is wrong with me, let alone providing a winning strategy in our game of warfare." Sheldon jumped up from the armchair and started pacing again, tugging at his hair eyes wide with anxiety.

"Whoa! Why didn't you tell me we had a milky green situation, Leonard?" Howard lept up from the couch and started backing away slowly.

"Calm down, Howard. It's not milky green, Sheldon's just having a few issues that we're trying to get to the bottom of." Leonard reassured his friend and Howard stepped closer to the board.

"Hmm…if this were a sci-fi movie, I'd get you to put alien parasite up on the board. Ripley displayed all of these symptoms in the Alien movies…inability to sleep, accompanied by nightmares, sweating but no fever, elevated heart rate…yeah, alien parasite works for me."

"Not helping, Howard." Leonard muttered and Sheldon stopped pacing to look over at the diminutive engineer.

"Where would I have picked up an alien parasite? It explains so much…Leonard, write it down!"

"Sheldon, you do not have an alien parasite growing in your gut!" Leonard sighed, and Sheldon just waved a hand over at the board.

"Write it down! It's the closest thing to an explanation we've had all morning."

"If you were a female, I'd suggest that you were going through early onset menopause." Raj offered up from the couch. "It sounds exactly what my Mother went through a few years ago…I wonder if there is a male equivalent?"

"Raj, Sheldon would have to have a working endocrine system in order for that to happen…and we all know he's been stuck in pre-adolescence for years now." Howard remarked, only half in jest.

"I'll have you know that my endocrine system works perfectly well, thank you much." Sheldon retorted hotly, "Otherwise why would Leonard and I have even contemplated offering up our valuable DNA to the high IQ sperm bank a few years ago?"

"Perhaps it's Pon Farr then…" Raj noticed the Star Trek DVD case abandoned by the TV cabinet and offered up an out of the box suggestion. "Sheldon's been repressing his urges for years and now they have become too much for him to handle and he needs to act on them or die."

"One extreme to another…guys you do realise that the only two explanations we have up on the board are completely made up, don't you?" Leonard crossed his arms over his chest and looked around the room. "Oh, alright then!" He wrote 'Pon Farr' on the cause board and pointed the marker at Sheldon. "Okay, say we're going to go down the Pon Farr route, have you been experiencing any strange…um…how do I put this…unusual throbbing or activity in your groin area?"

"Urgh!" Raj and Howard wrinkled their noses up at Leonard's delicate phrasing. "Are you seriously asking Sheldon whether he's had a boner lately? Come on, Leonard let's not stray too far from reality…" Howard stopped talking as he noticed the way that Sheldon's cheeks were slightly flushed and he was avoiding making eye contact. "Oh dear God!" He murmured and sank back against the cushions. "The world is seriously freakin' out now, Sheldon Cooper is a real man!"

"Okay, Sheldon…in the interest of science and in order to make a correct diagnosis…how often would you say that you've…" Leonard's voice trailed off as he couldn't bring himself to actually ask the question.

"Experienced local vascular throbbing?" Sheldon offered up a dry explanation for the raging fire in his loins, and Leonard nodded. "Twice a day for the last five months…each episode lasting approximately thirty to forty minutes."

"Wow…that's some throbbing!" Howard remarked from the couch, "I was lucky if mine were five minutes before I had an exploding volcano in my pants."

"I do not 'explode' as you so crudely put it, Wolowitz. I simply enter into a meditative state and it goes away of its own accord." Sheldon glanced over at Howard and Raj who were both looking at him in complete astonishment. "I really don't see what all the fuss is about, yes it is a nuisance but I don't see what it has to do with my other symptoms at all."

"You don't huh?" Howard walked over to grab the pen from Leonard and on the timeline board, wrote 'five months', on the symptom board 'morning wood' and on the cause board wrote a large question mark. "Gentlemen, I draw your attention to the boards in front of you…Tell me, what do you see as the only variable that could link all of Sheldon's 'symptom' together?"

"A predilection to science fiction and gullibility maybe?" Leonard squinted at the board, his head tilted to one side as he scanned his scrawl.

"A sudden inability to digest my Tuesday burger at the Cheesecake Factory." Sheldon offered and Howard grinned over at him.

"Close but no cigar. Wait here a moment, I think I can get this cleared up in no time." Howard set the pen down on the ledge under the whiteboard and jogged across the hall to wake up the only other person he could think of that be able to see what he saw clearly defined on the boards.


	2. Chapter 2

"Howard, this had better be an emergency…or else you're in for a whoopin'." Penny blearily rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and leant against the doorframe as she glared at the small man.

"Penny, we are in need of your assistance across the hall. Sheldon is experiencing some unusual symptoms…I think I've worked out what the matter is, but I'd be grateful if you could confirm it for me."

"Not milky green again, you know I hate it when I get stuck with the VapoRub!" Penny whined as she tied her robe securely around her waist and slipped her feet into a pair of pink fluffy slippers.

"Let's just say, if I'm correct you won't be the one having to put that gunk on his chest again…" Howard opened the door to Sheldon's apartment and let Penny walk in front of him.

"Penny!" Sheldon exclaimed in horror as he saw her walk up to the white boards. "You can't be in here, I'm not dressed! Howard, why'd you bring her over?"

"Relax, moonpie…I've seen you wear less…" Penny patted his arm and tapped her finger against her chin as she scanned over the writing on the board. She hid a smile at the fact they felt it necessary to include Pon Farr and Alien Parasite as possible causes, and then her eyes widened as she made the connection.

"Hah! You see it too, don't you?" Howard exclaimed loudly as Penny turned around, jaw dropping with surprise.

"I see it…I don't quite believe it, but I see it."

"See what?" Leonard interrupted and Penny grabbed the red marker and drew a number of arrows across the boards all leading to the one common factor…

"Amy?" Raj followed her lines and looked over at a stunned looking Sheldon, who was sitting there shaking his head in denial.

"No, no, no…impossible, I refuse to accept it."

"Sheldon, you said it yourself…Tuesday nights at The Cheesecake Factory; what's the only thing that's changed recently…Amy." Raj grabbed the pen and circled 'Cheesecake Factory' and tapped the word 'Amy'.

"Sleeplessness…three nights ago, what were you doing three nights ago, Sheldon? Oh, yeah…a symposium with, yeah you guessed it…Amy." Penny grabbed the pen again and wrote 'symposium' on the board and tapped Amy's name again. "Can't think why the rest of you didn't figure it out sooner, and you're supposed to be the smart ones."

"But what about the rest of my abnormal symptoms? Penny, there has to be some other reasonable explanation…maybe I have a tumour or something?" Sheldon cried out, looking frantically at the board, searching for something else that could explain his irritability and raging hormones. Howard grabbed the pen and circled everything else on the symptom board and then tapped the timeline.

"You just don't see it do you, Sheldon? Everything on this board leads back to five months ago…the only thing different that's in your life since then is…Amy."

"I'm afraid they're right, Sheldon…it looks to me like you've been bitten by the bug alright." Leonard shook his head slowly at his friend, grinning widely.

"Bug? What bug? Dear Lord, I'm gonna die aren't I?" Sheldon started scratching at his arm as if he were scraping off some parasite.

"Sweetie, you're not gonna die…you may feel like it sometimes but trust me, you're not dying. What Leonard was trying to say is that he thinks you're in love with Amy."

"In love? With Amy Farrah Fowler?" Sheldon fell back against his cushions, his face impossibly pale and started struggling for breath.

"Sheldon? Buddy?" Leonard was immediately at his side and pressed a hand on his friend's arm. "Calm down and try not to panic, just breath nice and slow…that's it…in and out...good."

"I'm alright." Sheldon eventually said quietly and Leonard removed his hand. Sheldon straightened out his pyjamas and rose to his feet. "Excuse me please, I need to get dressed now."

"Sweetie, are you okay? You look a little…"

"I don't think I will ever be okay again, Penny. If your hypothesis is correct, I appear to be in love with a woman that has made it quite clear that she will never contemplate entering into a romantic relationship with me. Maybe I should cut off all ties with Amy before things get any worse." Sheldon's shoulders were hunched over and his face was a picture of abject misery. Penny walked over to open up her arms offering a consoling hug, and to everyone's surprise Sheldon accepted it, letting her wrap an arm around his waist and giving a gentle squeeze.

"Sweetie, perhaps it's not as bad as it appears…what makes you think that Amy is against the idea of romance?"

"Um…perhaps it was when she said that 'everything up to, and including coitus was off the table'?"

"Ooh, tricky…but not impossible. Sheldon, you just need to introduce the possibility of romance gradually…what about one of your agreement thingies? Can't you have a 'Friendship Agreement' that will help Amy integrate herself into your life slowly?"

"Hmm…interesting, tell me more," Sheldon stood back from Penny and her arm dropped down to her side as she thought about what the agreement could entail.

"Well, you could put something in there saying that as your 'friend' she should be willing to share a few meals with you during the week - perhaps Monday night Thai, Tuesday Cheesecake Factory and Thursday night pizza's; maybe word it like you were doing her a favour or something, you know drown her in fancy lawyer speak to hide the fact that the whole thing is skewed in your favour."

"I like it already, hold on…I have a notepad in my room. I must say Penny, I never realised that you were hiding such a devious streak. Well, what are you waiting for?" Sheldon paused at the door of his room, and looked over his shoulder; nodding his head for her to enter. "Not on the bed, Penny…only I am allowed to sit on the bed, you may have a seat on the floor or the windowsill." Sheldon grabbed a pad and pen from his nightstand and scribbled down what Penny had already said.

"Umm…perhaps you could add a section about how she could go on a rota with Leonard for driving you to work? Caltech is on the way to UCLA and she practically passes our building every morning anyway." Penny tugged her robe a little lower over her legs and then realised that she could be sitting there naked and it probably wouldn't have bothered Sheldon in the slightest.

"Ooh, I like that…what if I also mentioned the potential for driving me to the Comic-book store or train store if Leonard is otherwise engaged?"

"Yeah, that'll do it for sure…Nothing gets a woman's motor running than ferrying her boyfriend around town." Penny muttered sarcastically, Sheldon failed to catch it this time and beamed over at her.

"I thought so, however I think that we should avoid all mention of the word 'boyfriend' or 'girlfriend' in Amy's presence, we don't want to send her running for the hills. Thank you, Penny for your assistance, but I think I have enough to work on for now." Penny took the gentle dismissal in her stride and left Sheldon to get dressed in private.

"Okay guys, my work here is done…Operation Shamy is in full effect, hang onto your hats!" Penny waved at the guys and left them all wondering what had gone on in Sheldon's bedroom as she walked calmly across the hall to head back to bed.


End file.
